Tribunal decisions

The decision

IN THE UPPER TRIBUNAL
IMMIGRATION AND ASYLUM CHAMBER Case Nos: UI-2026-002626
& UI-2026-002664
First-tier Tribunal No: HU/59770/2023

THE IMMIGRATION ACTS

Decision & Reasons Issued:

8th September 2026

Before

UPPER TRIBUNAL JUDGE KEBEDE

Between

ABIDEEN ADEGBOYEGA EGBODOKU
Appellant
and

SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT
Respondent

Representation:
For the Appellant: Mr R Solomon, instructed by Suriya & Co Solicitors
For the Respondent: Ms A Nolan, Senior Home Office Presenting Officer

Heard at Field House on 3 September 2026

DECISION AND REASONS

1. The appellant is a citizen of Nigeria born on 24 April 1959. He appeals, with permission, against the decision of the First-tier Tribunal dismissing his appeal against the respondent’s decision to refuse his application for leave to remain in the UK.

2. The appellant claims to have arrived in the UK on 1 April 1996 and to have remained here since that time. On 26 March 2009 he applied for an EEA residence card. His application was refused on 7 January 2010. On 23 June 2023 he applied for permission to remain in the UK on long residence grounds and on the basis of the private life he had established here. His application was also considered as a human rights claim and was refused by the respondent on 30 July 2023.

3. The respondent, in refusing the appellant’s application, was not satisfied that he had at least 10 years of lawful residence in the UK so as to meet the requirements of paragraph 276B(i) of the immigration rules and was not satisfied that he had been living in the UK for 20 years for the purposes of Appendix Private Life. The respondent was not satisfied that the appellant could meet the requirements of the immigration rules on the basis of family or private life and considered that he did not qualify for leave to remain outside the immigration rules on the basis of exceptional circumstances.

4. The appellant appealed against that decision, asserting in his grounds of appeal that the respondent’s decision was in breach of his Article 8 human rights.

5. For the appeal, the appellant produce a skeleton argument and a bundle of documents which included a witness statement, medical notes and records for Abideen Awesu with a date of birth 28 August 1970, educational certificates, and various pieces of evidence of his residence in the form of correspondence, payslips and bank statements, and money transfer receipts. He also produced a bundle of additional evidence containing his medical notes and bank statements, and a schedule of documents entitled ‘Egbodoku Residence Evidence Schedule’.

6. The appellant’s appeal was heard in the First-tier Tribunal on 9 December 2025. The judge considered there to be a five year gap between 1997 and 2002 during which there was no evidence of the appellant’s residence in the UK and during which period the appellant could have returned home, he found the money transfers from 2002 to 2006 to lack probative value on their own, he attached limited weight to a 2002 DVLA letter, and he had concerns about the credibility of medical notes prior to 2009 as they were not in the appellant’s own identity and there was inconsistent evidence about whose NHS registration was being used. He did not accept that the appellant had been in the UK since 1996 but considered that the documentary evidence showed that he had been here from 2009. The judge did not, therefore, accept that the appellant had been in the UK for 20 years. He considered that the appellant had failed to show that there would be very significant obstacles to his integration in Nigeria following 16 years of residence in the UK and that he had failed to show that any interference with his private life would be disproportionate. The judge accordingly dismissed the appeal.

7. The appellant appealed against the judge’s decision. He was granted permission on a limited basis only in the First-tier Tribunal, on the grounds that there was a failure by the judge to consider his medical conditions when assessing very significant obstacles to integration and when undertaking the Article 8 balancing exercise. Upon renewal of the application in the Upper Tribunal, permission was granted on all grounds. Those grounds were: a failure to take account of material evidence, a defective assessment of ‘very significant obstacles to integration’ and an inadequate Article 8 proportionality assessment. The respondent produced a Rule 24 response, opposing the appeal.

8. The matter came before me for a hearing. Both parties made submissions.

9. Mr Solomon submitted, with regard to the judge’s findings on 20 years’ long residence, that whilst the judge referred to a five year gap between 1997 and 2002 there was actually a money transfer receipt for 4 April 2000, so that the gap was shorter than believed. He submitted that the main focus of the grounds, however, was the judge’s failure to consider the appellant’s medical condition. That had been referred to by the appellant in his witness statement at [10] and had therefore been flagged up, and it was incumbent upon the judge to address that when considering the issues of ‘very significant obstacles to integration’ and proportionality. Mr Solomon submitted that the judge had only considered the medical evidence in the context of the 20 years’ residence and had not addressed it in relation to the appellant’s health for Article 8 purposes and had made only an ambiguous reference to an operation, at [10]. The judge had not rejected the medical evidence and therefore ought to have considered it in the context of ‘very significant obstacles to integration’ and proportionality. Mr Solomon acknowledged that the appellant’s medical conditions were not detailed in the skeleton argument before the First-tier Tribunal but submitted that the judge ought nevertheless to have engaged with the matter since it was referred to in the appellant’s statement. Mr Solomon submitted that the judge’s Article 8 proportionality assessment was very short and that there was no proper assessment of factors for and against the appellant. The judge reached a conclusion without adequate reasoning. The appellant’s medical condition was relevant to the proportionality assessment.

10. Ms Nolan relied upon paragraph four of the headnote to Lata (FtT: principal controversial issues) India [2023] UKUT 163 in submitting that a judge was not required to trawl though the papers to identify what issues were to be addressed and that the task of a judge was to deal with the issues that the parties had identified, which was what the judge had done in the appellant’s case. There was nothing in the appellant’s grounds of appeal or skeleton argument suggesting that the appellant’s medical condition was such as to lead to there being ‘very significant obstacles to integration’ in Nigeria or a disproportionate interference with the appellant’s private life. Ms Nolan submitted further that, whilst the appellant in his statement stated that he had been suffering from his medical ailments since 2007, the judge had not accepted the medical notes prior to 2009 as they did not appear to relate to him. In addition, the medical records available from 2009 set out the appellant’s active problems but did not refer to any of the medical conditions mentioned by the appellant in his statement at [10], so that even on the evidence before the judge it could not be said that the medical records would have had any material impact on the outcome of the appeal. Ms Nolan submitted that the appellant was seeking to argue a case which was not presented before the First-tier Tribunal. With regard to ground two, Ms Nolan submitted that the judge had given adequate reasons in relation to the appellant’s ties to Nigeria, at [19], and with regard to ground three the judge had given proper consideration to all matters relevant to proportionality and had accorded relevant weight to each factor.

11. Mr Solomon, in response, reiterated the points previously made.

Analysis

12. There is no merit in the grounds in this case, in my view.

13. The main challenge made to the judge’s decision is that he failed to consider the appellant’s medical conditions in his consideration of ‘very significant obstacles to integration’ in Nigeria and in his Article 8 proportionality assessment. However, as the respondent’s Rule 24 response and Ms Nolan properly pointed out, the medical evidence and notes produced for the appeal were only relied upon in relation to the issue of length of residence, to support the appellant’s claim of having accrued 20 years’ residence in the UK. Although the appellant referred to his medical conditions in his statement at [10], no case was put to the judge that the medical evidence was relevant to the Article 8 assessment, other than in relation to length of residence. Certainly, the appellant’s grounds of appeal and skeleton argument made no such suggestion and there is nothing in the judge’s decision to indicate that that was an argument made before him at the hearing. As the Tribunal in Lata made clear at paragraph four of the headnote, it was not for the judge to trawl though the papers to identify what issues were to be addressed:

“It is a misconception that it is sufficient for a party to be silent upon, or not make an express consideration as to, an issue for a burden to then be placed upon a judge to consider all potential issues that may favourably arise, even if not expressly relied upon. The reformed appeal procedures that now operate in the First-tier Tribunal have been established to ensure that a judge is not required to trawl though the papers to identify what issues are to be addressed. The task of a judge is to deal with the issues that the parties have identified.”

14. The judge was accordingly not expected to consider a claim that was never raised before him and did not err in law by failing to do so.

15. In any event the medical records produced by the appellant for the appeal, to which the appellant’s statement at [10] referred as exhibit AAE1, were considered by the judge at [10] and [11] of his decision and were given limited weight since they did not appear to relate to him. As the judge noted at [10] the medical notes pre-dated 2009 and did not appear to be in the appellant’s identity. As recorded by the judge, the appellant admitted that he was using his uncle’s NHS registration. For the reasons given in those paragraphs, therefore, the judge was fully and properly entitled to have the concerns that he did about the reliability of that evidence in relation to the appellant’s own health. As for the medical notes dated from 2009 until 2025, Ms Nolan properly pointed out that they did not confirm the medical conditions claimed by the appellant at [10] of his statement. No such conditions were listed at the top of the records as active or significant past problems, and there is no mention of them in the body of the notes. There was therefore no evidence before the judge of the appellant having any such medical conditions, other than his own assertions at [10] of his statement. There was nothing in the evidence before the judge which could possibly have had any material impact on his findings on very significant obstacles to integration and proportionality. Accordingly I do not accept that there was any error of law made by the judge in that regard. The first ground is therefore not made out.

16. The second ground relies upon there being an acceptance of the appellant’s continuous residence for 29 years, which there clearly was not. The judge gave full and careful consideration to all the evidence relied upon by the appellant as proof of his continuous residence in the UK. He was entitled to have the concerns that he did about the continuity of residence in light of a gap in the evidence of several years from 1997. Although Mr Solomon pointed out a further money transfer slip for April 2000 which could be taken to reduce the gap from five years to three years, there nevertheless remained an unexplained gap, and in any event the judge made clear that he was not satisfied that the money transfer receipts were probative evidence in themselves, particularly given his other concerns about the evidence before him. He gave cogent reasons for not accepting the evidence relating to the period prior to 2009, commenting at [3] that this was a poorly evidenced case and pointing out at [14] the absence of evidence which the appellant could reasonably have been expected to produce but had failed to do.

17. Having found, for reasons cogently given, that it could only be accepted from the evidence that the appellant had continuously lived in the UK since 2009, the judge went on to give full and careful consideration to all matters relevant to the question of whether there were very significant obstacles to the appellant’s integration in Nigeria and whether the interference with his private life in the UK caused by his removal would be disproportionate. In so doing, the judge took account at [19] of the appellant’s length of residence in the UK on the basis of it being 16 years, and had regard to his age, his ties to the UK and his ability to reintegrate and settle in Nigeria. In so far as the grounds refer to the appellant’s serious medical vulnerabilities and dependence upon ongoing treatment, that was a matter which the judge had found not to have been properly established by the appellant, as already discussed. The judge gave full and proper reasons for concluding that the appellant could reasonably return to and reintegrate in Nigeria. He was entitled to reach such a conclusion on the evidence available to him.

18. The same can be said of the judge’s proportionality assessment. Although the assessment was brief, it clearly took account of the findings already made and the conclusions reached in regard to the appellant’s background and profile. In so far as the grounds assert that the judge failed to give proper weight to the appellant’s lengthy residence and established private life, that is clearly not the case. The judge was fully and properly entitled to conclude as he did.

19. For all these reasons I do not accept that the judge made a material error of law in his decision requiring it to be set aside. The decision is accordingly upheld.

Notice of Decision

20. The making of the decision of the First-tier Tribunal did not involve a material error on a point of law requiring it to be set aside. The decision to dismiss the appeal stands.

Signed: S Kebede
Upper Tribunal Judge Kebede

Judge of the Upper Tribunal
Immigration and Asylum Chamber

Dated: 3 September 2026